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Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
Awkward moment- dealing with another child biting :-/
Ugh, at a play date today one of the other kids bit DD. HARD! You could see the teeth marks and now it is swollen and red......poor baby.
And the mom really didn't do much about it. She apologized and had the kid say sorry, but I would have had a time out and made a VERY big deal about it if it had been DD who did the biting. Such an awkward moment......and the worst part is, this is not the first time the child had bitten (not DD, but another girl) :-/
I will absolutely make a big deal out of it, if it happens again, but how would you do it and still try to not make the other mom feeling totally horrible???
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Re: Awkward moment- dealing with another child biting :-/
My sister isn't consistent with discipline so I know it's up to me to make my expectations known with her girls. They're not bad kids but they do test their limits.
Didn't know that. The child will be 2 in June.
Mac tends to hit more than he bites, but if he hits a person or animal, we tell him, "No hitting, gentle," and then he gently pets the person or animal. We probably need to start introducing "I'm sorry," as well.
Under 2 is a difficult age because each child is very different in how well they will respond as far as discipline goes. Some children don't respond well at all if you make a big deal and then the lesson gets lost, anyway.
If it happens that frequently and bothers you that much, you might suggest holding off on the play dates until the biting passes. Or you could even be "busy" for the next couple of play dates. These things are usually phases.
If he'll be 2 in june.. thats the same age as my son.
She should have done a stern NO and redirected him to do something else or maybe remove him from the area for a few minutes. Thats what I would have done. He is too young IMO to understand what a time out is but when you keep saying No to things he shouldn't be doing, they eventually will catch on. My son went through a phase of throwing toys at me.. hard ones! I said no over and over.. and it stopped. repetition is key.
If it happened again and the other mother said nothing.. I'd walk up to the child and say "NO BITE". at least you can say you tried... lol
I've been on both sides of the fence in this kind of situation when my son was a toddler. DS was never a hitter or biter, but he had some other behavioral issues like ripping toys out of other kids hands and making the child scream and cry. I would reprimand him over and over again and try to explain to him why his behavior was bad, but 2 year olds don't really have any self control and don't really care about other people's feelings, so I kind of feel for other moms when I see their toddlers acting out in group settings.
On the other hand, one of my very closest, lifelong friends has a DS 8 weeks younger than mine, who was a big time hitter and biter as a toddler. Everytime we got together for playdates, which was once a week, sometimes more, my poor son became the victim of a lot of physical abuse from her child. I did not blame my friend and I knew her son's behavior was not a result of her parenting, but there was a while where I told her that it would be better to hold off on playdates until the kids could get along better.
So its up to you how you want to handle the situtation. Biting is very typical toddler behavior and the child usually has to outgrow it on their own, but if you don't want your child put in that situation, just don't have playdates with the other kid for awhile.
If it is a good friend, next time I'd do the stern 'no bite' to her if the mom does not but not much more than that. A friend's son bit my DS around maybe 20 months or so on his back & his mom removed him & put him in time out but was not super firm with him...I didn't make a big deal out of it (it was a pretty bad bite & left a huge mark for like 2 weeks but didn't break the skin) b/c I knew she felt badly enough about it. I never brought it up again or told her about how bad the mark was.
The only way I'd really do something about it is if you play with them a lot and the biting recurs a lot. It is normal for kids that age to bite unfortunately (my DD still bites her brother at almost 3 sometimes)